My Greatest Loss

One year ago this month I was the saddest I've ever been.

My husband and I found out we were expecting a baby... and 3 days later, I lost that baby.

There really aren't words to properly express how I felt. I was miserable. I felt loss like I had never felt it before. I cried for days. I knew that there was nothing that I could have done to prevent it and that I didn't do anything to cause it and still I blamed myself. I never felt this baby move, heard it's heartbeat, or saw it on an ultrasound and yet I loved it.

My husband was amazing. Through his pain he focused only on me. He held me while I cried, he told me he loved me, he asked what he could do to help. There was nothing he could do. I could see that he was worried about me. He had never seen me in that state before and I'm sure it was probably a shock given that I always pride myself on being so outwardly strong.

Possibly the hardest part of this harsh reality was that in our excitement about the baby we had "announced" my pregnancy on Facebook. Literally one of my first thoughts when I realized I was miscarrying was "this is why you don't tell people this early." I was ashamed, and now I had to publicly announce that I had lost this precious gift that I had been given.

I waited a day or two, and ignored the "congratulations" and well wishes that I received on my facebook page. Every notification was like a knife to my heart. Here were people who were genuinely happy for us, wanting to share in our joy, and it nearly killed me every time I'd read another one. Then after a few days, I posted the news.

I braced myself. I'm not sure what I was expecting... probably a few people offering their condolences, and maybe some more well meaning people trying to comfort me by saying things like "at least it was early enough that you didn't feel it move." (yes, people actually said things like that to me) What I received was more than I could have asked for. I got reassurance. In addition to the dozens of people who expressed their sorrow for us publicly, I also got private messages from several women. I won't name them here because they know who they are, but what they did was tell me that they understood. It had happened to them too. Some of them had been through one miscarriage, some had been through two or three or even more. Some of these women are friends of mine, and some are casual aquaintences. These women took their pain and used it to help me heal. What an incredible thing. I know it wasn't easy for them to relive those feelings, but they did. They reached out because they knew.

I like to find positive things in the midst of negativity. In addition to those amazing women who shared their experiences with me, I got a second chance. Just 5 weeks after I lost our baby, I found out that I was pregnant again and May 14th I gave birth to my second chance. I was terrified thoroughout most of my pregnancy. As any woman who has lost a baby knows, once you experience it, you're afraid that it will happen again. I have to look at my miscarriage as a stepping stone to my daughter, because without it, I wouldn't have her. God knew something about the first baby that I didn't, and I have to trust that He knew what was best for me. He doesn't make mistakes, and I have the proof...